Artificial Intelligence (AI) could assume responsibility for over 80 percent of repetitive civil servant tasks in the UK, according to a study by The Alan Turing Institute. This adoption of AI automation could affect well over 100 million operations, ranging from passport processing to voter registration, and has significant implications for time-saving and efficiency.
The study examined the approximately one billion citizen-facing transactions conducted by the British government annually across 57 departments and 400 services. The researchers examined half of these services involving decision-making and information exchange between an official and a citizen. They found that the most time-intensive tasks possess the greatest potential for time-saving if automated.
The researchers concluded that AI could potentially carry out an estimated 84 percent of 143 million “complex but repetitive transactions.”
“AI has enormous potential to help governments become more responsive, efficient, and fair,” said Dr Jonathan Bright, the artificial intelligence expert at The Alan Turing Institute. “Even if AI could save one minute per transaction, that would be the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of hours of labour saved each year,” he said.
Automating predictable environments such as machine operation could save the UK government an estimated £24 billion ($30.6 billion) per year, further facilitating the path to a smaller state and improved delivery of services. In the U.S., local governments have begun experimenting with incorporating AI into their daily workflow.
